USF announces budget cuts

USF officials just announced plans to trim their 08-09 budget by 15 percent, or $52-million, over the next two years - with $35.6-million of the cut coming in the budget year that begins July 1.

The rest will be set aside, with the expectation that the governor and lawmakers will have to further cut the $66-billion state budget they just approved as the economy here worsens and tax collections come in below earlier estimates.

The cuts include the loss of 450 positions, only 70 of which are currently filled. The bulk have been left vacant since last year, when falling state revenues forces universities including USF to cut their base annual budgets by tens of millions of dollars.

Trustees are expected to approve the plan this afternoon.

President Judy Genshaft (shown above) stressed that tenured and tenure-track faculty positions will not be cut. Nor will the university eliminate or suspend degree programs, as UF plans to do.

And provost Ralph Wilcox said USF will use non-recurring reserves to fill some 170 vacant teaching positions for fall with adjuncts and non-tenured instructors. "It's a reinvestment, we're putting that money back into faculty," he said. "We have to teach classes in the fall, and we have an obligation to the students here."

- Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler, higher education reporter

Vice President of the USF Faculty Senate Larry Branch raised a question on the budget cuts at the end of Judy Genshaft's announcement. [Ken Helle, Times]

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